simon

Not an unquestionable and immortal lock, but someone who made it on a preliminary pre-cut draft and has a strong shot at the back half or back third. One of the best television match workers ever, with a formula that gets (or got) the most out of a lot of marginal or average talents (Swagger, Zeke, Burchill, Yoshi Tatsu, Ryder, Drew McIntyre, Kazarian, etc.). It's one that also always gets changed up in a little ways that keep it interesting, be that a new focus in repeat versions of a match up or the way he's so good at changing counters up and evolving the pairing in a real logical sort of way. A stellar big match worker too, there's rarely a Christian pay per view match of note after like 2003-4 or so that I would say failed to deliver, even if they're not all barnburners. With the return to the ring, he still might be a guy building his case for a few more years too. RECOMMENDATIONS: vs. Samoa Joe, TNA Destination X 2007 (3/11/2007) vs. Drew McIntyre, WWE Smackdown (7/30/2010 & 8/20/2010) vs. Randy Orton, WWE Over The Limit 2011 (5/22/2011) vs. Alberto Del Rio, WWE SummerSlam 2013 (8/18/2013)

Far from a lock, but someone on a preliminary pre-cut sort of a list. It's more then Generation Next and MCMG, honestly. Having done the deepest dive on 2000s IWA Mid South of probably anyone ever, there's so many little Shelley gems in there, as a guy who got it remarkably fast. Also a delight whenever he popped up in PWG or wherever. Beyond that, he's up there with AJ as one of the best television workers in TNA history, which is both impressive and a little depressing. Once he's out of there, the KUSHIDA team is one of the most fun and reliable tag team acts of the last decade, and the career revitalization over the last eighteen months as a singles guy has seen him not only produce these great matches, but also do that with talent that is best described as "unrefined", if we're going to be nice about it, outside of the three match Jonathan Gresham series in 2019-20. It's not the career it seemed like he was going to have in 2004 and 2005, but becoming your generation's Bobby Eaton instead of your generation's Chris Jericho isn't the worst thing in the world. Hardly a disqualifying factor. And outside of Roderick Strong, there's not a better or more prolific tag team wrestler to come out of that generation, and Shelley is probably more diverse than Roddy in that regard. Pair it with the Generation Next/Embassy runs, some of my favorite stuff ever (especially on Shelley's end, playing a different sort of heel in each environment, calculating leader vs. total stooge), and all the Motor City Machine Guns stuff, genuinely one of the best tag teams of the last twenty years largely led by Shelley, and it's enough for me to at the very least put him into consideration. High chance he winds up on the final cut, even if it's the bottom ten to twenty.

I'd shorten that bad time frame to 2007-2014. 2006 AJ in TNA is also really worth looking at, as it's the only year we have of him in his prime in which he spends any significant length of time as a pure tag team wrestler between the AJ & Daniels vs. LAX and AJ & Daniels vs. AMW feuds that take up a solid six months of the title picture.

Samoa Joe from 2004-2006 is one of the best wrestlers I've ever seen, and the case is only expanded upon when you have a year or two before and after that peak in which he's merely great or very very very good. Yes, so much of the TNA work was bad. Like, unbelievably bad. But given how strong that peak was, and how much fun he's been post-TNA when things lined up (Joe's fun 2015 ROH tour, the AJ feud, the summer 2017 Raw title picture), it's not just all peak. Really though, I don't know that any wrestler anywhere ever has had as good a year as Samoa Joe did in 2005. If I find myself saying that about someone, I don't think it's at all reasonable to leave them off a GWE list, even if it's in the eighties or nineties.

Absolute yes. I don't know where, but one of a few wrestlers from the last decade who I cannot imagine making a list without. He's one of the best territorial Aces of the last generation (combine this with his early lack of footage as he's great as soon as like 2006-7, and he's basically your japanese indie Bockwinkel or Rose or whomever), great in every role he's been tasked with, great at everything mechanically, and with a hell of a resume. The list of wrestlers who've had their career matches with HARASHIMA is basically the entire DDT roster sans Akiyama. One of the more endearing and naturally wholesome babyfaces of the last twenty years, but capable of being incredibly vicious as well. A wrestler who rarely ever has matches of any note that aren't great, and on the rare occasions in which that's incorrect, there's still usually an exceptional HARASHIMA performance in the match itself. He's forty six and still one of the best in the world, and I can only imagine the resume growing over the next five. And the pants also whip ass.